Install Your Own Scripts Form Building Tutorial

Welcome to Part 2 of Building Your Own Forms

In our last lesson, we went through the basic form elements you would find in most forms. However, they were by no means all of them.

Forms can be used to gather almost ANY information you desire, and there are form elements to accomodate most anything.

Let's continue with some of the more advanced tag elements:

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Advanced Form Elements

The INPUT tag is not the only tag that can be used to create form elements. In this section we will cover advanced form elements, such as Textboxes, Selection Lists, and Buttons. These form tags greatly increase your form building flexibility on how you collect your data, or present your forms.

Multi-line Textbox:


Selection List:


Button:
Multi-line Text Boxes

Multi-line text or comment boxes allow users to enter a large amount of text into a form.

Multi-line text boxes are created within the FORM using the <TEXTAREA> tag and the closing </TEXTAREA> tag.

The TEXTAREA tag has four attributes:

NAME attribute:

The NAME attribute is required. It uniquely identifies the user's input with the correct form element.

COLS & ROWS:
You should include the COLS & ROWS attributes to define the size of your TEXTAREA because most browsers only display a very small box by default.

Wrap:

The WRAP attribute prevents the text from scrolling to the right as the user enters information into the textbox. It makes the input much easier for the user to review on the screen before submitting the information. Note: Internet Explorer automatically 'word-wraps' the text in the textbox. Netscape does not.

Default Text:

Any text added between the opening and closing TEXTAREA tags will be display in the text box by default like in the example below:
<TEXTAREA NAME="Comments" COLS=30 ROWS=5 WRAP=PHYSICAL>
Enter your comments here.
</TEXTAREA>
 

 

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Drop Down Lists:

Drop Down Lists give users a menu or pull-down menu of options to select from. To create a selection list, you use the <SELECT> tag and its required </SELECT> closing tag. The SELECT tag can have three possible attributes: MULTIPLE, NAME, and SIZE. Only the NAME attribute is required.

Attribute Description
NAME The NAME attribute is required. It identifies the selection to the server or form processing application.
MULTIPLE Enables viewers to select more than one item in a selection list. If the MULTIPLE attribute is not added, the viewer can only select one item.
SIZE Indicates how many selections display in the list window at one time.

OPTION Tag:

To add items to the selection list, you use the <OPTION> tag. The OPTION tag does not have a closing tag.

Examples:

<SELECT NAME="Cars"> <OPTION>SUV Info <OPTION>Minivans Info <OPTION>Sports Cars <OPTION>Hummers <OPTION>Pickup Trucks </SELECT> 

SIZE Attribute:

Adding a SIZE attribute to the SELECT tag defines how many items will be displayed at once. A scroll bar is added if there are more items that are not visible. In the example below, the SIZE is set to 3 but there are 5 items in the list. The last 2 items are visible by scrolling.

<SELECT NAME="Cars" SIZE=3>
<OPTION>SUV Info
<OPTION>Minivans Info
<OPTION>Sports Cars
<OPTION>Hummers
<OPTION>Pickup Trucks </SELECT>

               


MULTIPLE Attribute:

Adding a MULTIPLE attribute to the SELECT tag will allow the viewer to select more than one option from the list.

<SELECT NAME="Cars" SIZE=5 MULTIPLE>
<OPTION>SUV Info
<OPTION>Minivans Info
<OPTION>Sports Cars
<OPTION>Hummers
<OPTION>Pickup Trucks </SELECT>

                

To select multiple items, hold down the shift key to select consecutive items, or hold down the 'Ctrl' key to select items that are not consecutive.

Pre-Selected Items:

You can have one value from the list selected by default. Simply add the SELECTED attribute to the OPTION tag.

<SELECT NAME="Cars" SIZE=5 MULTIPLE>
<OPTION SELECTED>SUV Info
<OPTION>Minivans Info
<OPTION>Sports Cars
<OPTION>Hummers
<OPTION>Pickup Trucks </SELECT>

                


End of Part 2

Our next lesson will focus on the design and layout of your forms. Until then, practice what you've learned.


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Tired of paying others to install your scripts for you?

Are you interested in telling your script installer to "Take a hike!"?

Then you need Install Your Own Scripts. The new ebook from script installer Michael Ambrosio. It's Jam-Packed with extremely easy to follow step-by-step script installation lessons.

And you learn by actually installing THREE different scripts!

Don't delay. Order Now.
Tell your installer to Take A Hike!